I remember watching a Star Trek movie where Captain Jean-Luc Picard was discussing economics in the 21st century. The human race by that stage had done away with the concept of currency, and all property was either shared or ubiquitous thanks to technology such as replicators. Even at the time of watching the film, the demise of capitalism seemed incredible (if not impossible) but… perhaps there’s a kernel of truth in science fiction. Perhaps technology can help to even things out, if only just a little.
To explore briefly how technology could possibly help to level one particular playing field, I’d like to focus on a relatively new gizmo – the eReader. Although eReaders are yet to enter into everyday idiom, I believe that their impact is pre-ordained. Put simply, the eReader is a game-changer – it will alter how people access, share and discuss literature. It will effect how we buy books and perhaps how we read them. It will change how books are annotated. It will change how books are disseminated. It may also change how they are written. Certainly, it will increase the number of writers realising their dream of seeing their work published.
So what is an eReader? It’s basically a handheld device capable of digitally displaying text, but it’s not a notebook computer, iPod Touch or netbook. Now most people agree that one of the biggest problems of reading digitally-displayed text has been the glare (and resulting headaches) caused by reading from an illuminated screen. Fortunately this problem has been resolved by the advent of electronic ink. E-ink has been incorporated into many eReaders such as the Sony Reader , the iLiad , the BeBook , the Amazon Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s nook. It’s quite amazing technology. Basically electronic ink is comprised of millions of wee microcapsules, each about the diameter of a human hair. Each microcapsule contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles that float about in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the black particles are pulled to the bottom of the microcapsule and as a result, that tiny area will appear white to the reader (or black if the capsule is positively charged). By controlling each miniscule area, E-ink can recreate the look of a printed page.
There are obvious benefits to this method. E-ink can be read in bright sunlight and does not place any more strain on the eyes that a normal book. Also, because it’s all digital, text can be resized at the click of a button. Add to that other features such as electronic bookmarking of pages, the ability to share books by wirelessly transferring them from one device to another and the fact that each device can literally contain thousands of books, eReaders are quite a compelling alternative to printed books. (For more info on eBook readers, head over to http://www.digital-book-readers.com/).
The price of eReaders is coming down, largely due to competition. On the day Barnes & Noble’s nook was released in the US for $259 (USD), Amazon dropped the price of their eReader (the Kindle) to the same price. And this year, more devices are coming out on the international stage. This in turn will lead more and more publishers and writers to consider eReaders as a viable option for their content.
In fact, I sense something of a revolution in the wind, as writers discover they are not quite so dependent upon traditional publishers as a means to distribute content. Whilst this causes a conundrum for today’s publishing houses, it means that readers of books will be spoilt for choice. In fact, the problem facing readers will not be accessing content, but finding books to their liking. I can see the rise of supporting mechanisms to make the selection process easier – for example, social networking sites such as such as Good Reads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, WeRead, ReadWhale, JuiceSpot and others. (For a more comprehensive list, head over to 100 Awesome Social Sites for Bookworms at Online College).
What fascinates me about all this is how the lines between consumer and producer are blurring. People who always wanted to write a book have one less excuse – publishing is not the great obstacle it once was. Anyone can publish a book.
I look back on my teaching days and think of all those brilliant minds I encountered and it fills me with great optimism. I taught so many budding writers but few considered going down that road due to the torturous path of getting things to print. Now, schools have the option of moving kids into this space. In fact, it’s not really an option – it’s an obligation.
On a related note, last week I was contacted by Susan Crealock of Online Novels seeking my permission to include my second book Into the Endless on her site. Online Novels is an amazing collection of free novels, most of which can be downloaded from the web and read on eReaders (as well as on the humble computer). My inclusion on the site highlights the growing number of avenues available to writers who just want to see their work out where it can be read.
Of course, the future Jean-Luc inhabits is a long way off, but that’s the thing about technology – it sometimes takes the stuff of fantasy and turns it into reality. Only time will tell.
Things are only impossible until they’re not.
Jean-Luc Picard, ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’
I remember watching a Star Trek movie where Captain Jean-Luc Picard was discussing economics in the 21st century. The human race by that stage had done away with the concept of currency, and all property was either shared or ubiquitous thanks to technology such as replicators. Even at the time of watching the film, the demise of capitalism seemed incredible (if not impossible) but… perhaps there’s a kernel of truth in science fiction. Perhaps technology can help to even things out, if only just a little.
Jean-Luc Picard (from Wikia, published under Fair Use Provisions)
To explore (briefly) how technology could possibly help to level one particular playing field, I’d like to focus on a relatively new gizmo – the eReader. Although eReaders are yet to enter into everyday idiom, I believe that their impact is pre-ordained. Put simply, the eReader is a game-changer – it will alter how people access, share and discuss literature. It will effect how we buy books and perhaps how we read them. It will change how books are annotated. It will change how books are disseminated. It may also change how they are written. Certainly, it will increase the number of writers realising their dream of seeing their work published.
So what is an eReader? It’s basically a handheld device capable of digitally displaying text, but it’s not a notebook computer, iPod Touch or netbook. Now most people agree that one of the biggest problems of reading digitally-displayed text has been the glare (and resulting headaches caused by reading from an illuminated screen). Fortunately this problem has been resolved by the advent of electronic ink.
E-ink has been incorporated into many eReaders such as the Sony Reader , the iLiad, the BeBook, the Amazon Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s nook. It’s quite amazing technology. Basically electronic ink is comprised of millions of wee microcapsules, each about the diameter of a human hair. Each microcapsule contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles that float about in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the black particles are pulled to the bottom of the microcapsule and as a result, that tiny area will appear white to the reader (or black if the capsule is positively charged). By controlling each miniscule area, E-ink can recreate the look of a printed page.
Nook and Kindle by evilgenius Creative Commons 2010 Non-commercial Licence
There are obvious benefits to this method. E-ink can be read in bright sunlight and does not place any more strain on the eyes that a normal book. Also, because it’s all digital, text can be resized at the click of a button. Add to that other features such as electronic bookmarking of pages, the ability to share books by wirelessly transferring them from one device to another and the fact that each device can literally contain thousands of books, eReaders are quite a compelling alternative to printed books. (For more info on eBook readers, head over to digital-book-readers.com).
The price of eReaders is coming down, largely due to competition. On the day Barnes & Noble’s nook was released in the US for $259 (USD), Amazon dropped the price of their eReader (the Kindle) to the same price. And this year, more devices are coming out on the international stage. This in turn will lead more and more publishers and writers to consider eReaders as a viable option for their content.
In fact, I sense something of a revolution in the wind, as writers discover they are not quite so dependent upon traditional publishers as a means to distribute content. Whilst this causes a conundrum for today’s publishing houses, it means that readers of books will be spoilt for choice. In fact, the problem facing readers will not be accessing content, but finding books to their liking. I can see the rise of supporting mechanisms to make the selection process easier – for example, social networking sites such as such as Good Reads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, WeRead, ReadWhale, JuiceSpot and others. (For a more comprehensive list, head over to 100 Awesome Social Sites for Bookworms at Online College).
What fascinates me about all this is how the lines between consumer and producer are blurring. People who always wanted to write a book have one less excuse – publishing is not the great obstacle it once was. Anyone can publish a book.
I look back on my teaching days and think of all those brilliant minds I encountered and it fills me with great optimism. I taught so many budding writers but few considered going down that road due to the torturous path of getting things to print. Now, schools have the option of moving kids into this space. In fact, it’s not really an option – it’s an obligation.
On a related note, last week I was contacted by Susan Crealock of Online Novels seeking my permission to include my second book Into the Endless on her site (see related post And then there were three…). Online Novels is an amazing collection of free novels, most of which can be downloaded from the web and read on eReaders (as well as on the humble computer). My inclusion on the site highlights the growing number of avenues available to writers who just want to see their work out where it can be read.
Of course, the future Jean-Luc inhabits is a long way off, but that’s the thing about technology – it sometimes takes the stuff of fantasy and turns it into reality. Only time will tell.
In a little over a week I’ll be presenting at the VITTA Conference. The focus of my presentation is the potential of games in the context of a classroom. I’ve been privy to the rich learning that goes on when my kids play certain games on their Playstation and DS, so I thought I’d share some of these observations with the conference attendees at my session. To this end, my six year old son has built a level in Little Big Planet. I’ll be walking people through this level (and provide some insight into his thinking along the way). I’ll also be asking volunteers to come up and problem-solve some of the puzzles on offer in the DS game Scribblenauts.
Nico by Ian Muttoo 2009, Creative Commons Attribution, Copyleft Licence
In preparation for this presentation, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which good games scaffold learning, provide assessment and encourage risk-taking. Coincidentally, a few days ago I stumbled across ‘The 400 (so far)‘. This site is attempting to provide an exhaustive list of guidelines for game developers to consider when building games.
Any astute educator will see parallels between the best of these ideas and contemporary approaches to education. Rather than beat you over the head with a thesis overstating the significance of key points, I thought I’d just list the ones I see as particularly relevant and/or interesting.
Enjoy!
Provide Clear Short-Term Goals
Emphasize Exploration and Discovery
Provide Parallel Challenges with Mutual Assistance: When presenting the player with a challenge – a monster to kill, a puzzle to solve, a city to capture – provide several such challenges and set it up so accomplishing one challenge makes it a little easier to accomplish the others.
Make the Game Fun for the Player, not the Designer or Computer
Don’t Penalize the Player: It’s often tempting to design a penalty for the player to emphasize failure at a task or to discourage the player from attempting to do something in the game you don’t like. But “failing” and “being discouraged” just aren’t fun. There’s always a way to turn it around and reward the player for success, or encourage them to do what you want.
Provide an Enticing Long Term Goal: Many (but not all) games benefit by having an ultimate goal that is made clear to the player fairly early on. Making this goal enticing is one way to pull the player into the game world and encourage passion.
Be Consistent in Feedback to the Player: It is best to remain consistent when giving feedback to the player because variation merely for the sake of relieving boredom is particularly likely to result in frustration.
Simple as Possible: “Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler” – find ways to simplify game elements, but only to the point where further simplification takes away more interest than it compensates for with clarity.
Make Rewards Proportional to the Difficulty of the Task Required to Earn Them
Make the Player Feel Smart: Provide avenues for the player to feel clever, and conversely avoid situations that will make the player feel stupid.
Provide Multiple Solutions to Challenges: Avoid bottlenecks and boredom by providing different ways to achieve goals, preferably using different types of skills.
Players Should See Their Goal Before They Achieve It: The satisfaction of achieving a goal is magnified when the goal has been clear (and/or literally visible) for some time.
Do, Don’t Show: It is better to show action or drama being enacted than tell the player about it in exposition, but it’s even better to let the player experience that action or drama interactively instead of showing it.
Provide Outward and Visible Signs of Accomplishment: It is a powerful incentive for players to see visible signs of accomplishment, changing the appearance of their avatar/units, and not just in underlying statistics. In multiplayer games these signs should also be visible to other players.
Leave Player Wanting More
Trim the Fat: Ruthlessly trim away any parts of the game or story that do not directly contribute to the player’s enjoyment, and omit extraneous elements.
Design Concentric Spaces: Let the player return to earlier spaces and environments as a stronger, more capable character
Give Player a Way to Measure Progress and Clear Indication of How to Become Better
Incorporate Tutorial into Gameplay: Integrate instruction into the game progression instead of standalone tutorials
n preparation for this presentation, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which games scaffold learning, provide assessment and encourage risk-taking. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I stumbled across
This site is attempting to provide a exhaustive list of guidelines for game developers to consider when building games.
Any astute educator will easily be able to see parallels between these ideas and conteporary approaches to education. Rather than beat you over the head with an essay on the significance of each point, I thought I’d just list the ones I see as particilarly relevant.
Enjoy!
http://www.theinspiracy.com/400_so_far.htm
Provide Clear Short-Term Goals
Emphasize Exploration and Discovery
Provide Parallel Challenges with Mutual Assistance: When presenting the player with a challenge – a monster to kill, a puzzle to solve, a city to capture – provide several such challenges and set it up so accomplishing one challenge makes it a little easier to accomplish the others (that’s the mutual assistance component).
Make the Game Fun for the Player, not the Designer or Computer
Don’t Penalize the Player: It’s often tempting to design a penalty for the player to emphasize failure at a task or to discourage the player from attempting to do something in the game you don’t like. But “failing” and “being discouraged” just aren’t fun. There’s always a way to turn it around and reward the player for success, or encourage them to do what you want.
Provide an Enticing Long Term Goal: Many (but not all) games benefit by having an ultimate goal that is made clear to the player fairly early on. Making this goal enticing is one way to pull the player into the game world and encourage passion.
Be Consistent in Feedback to the Player: One of the stronger “consistency” rules, it is best to remain consistent when giving feedback to the player because variation merely for the sake of relieving boredom is particularly likely to result in frustration when the player reads intent that is not present. For example, the old Adventure Game classic “I can’t do that” – “I can’t do that here” implies there is a place where it can be done, and “I can’t do that yet” implies there is a time where it will be possible.
Simple as Possible: “Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler” – find ways to simplify any game element or system of game elements, but only to the point where further simplification takes away more interest than it compensates for with clarity.
Make Rewards Proportional to the Difficulty of the Task Required to Earn Them
Make the Player Feel Smart: Provide avenues for the player to feel clever, and conversely avoid situations that will make the player feel stupid.
Provide Multiple Solutions to Challenges: Avoid bottlenecks and boredom by providing different ways to achieve goals, preferably using different types of skills.
Players Should See Their Goal Before They Achieve It: The satisfaction of achieving a goal is magnified when the goal has been clear (and/or literally visible) for some time. Solving a puzzle or surmounting an obstacle without even knowing you were doing it, or without knowing why, robs the player of satisfaction.
Do, Don’t Show: It is better to show action or drama being enacted than tell the player about it in exposition, but it’s even better to let the player experience that action or drama interactively instead of showing it.
Provide Outward and Visible Signs of Accomplishment: It is a powerful incentive for players to see visible signs of accomplishment, changing the appearance of their avatar/units, displaying special advantages visibly and not just in underlying statistics. In multiplayer games these signs should also be visible to other players.
Provide a Reaction to Every Player Action: Ideally, every action a player can take should have some sort of feedback, visual, audible, or both.
Leave Player Wanting More: As distinguished from many games, which, by the time they’re finished, leave player wanting less
Trim the Fat: Ruthlessly trim away any parts of the game or story that do not directly contribute to the player’s enjoyment, and omit extraneous elements.
Design Concentric Spaces: Let the player return to earlier spaces and environments as a stronger, more capable character
Give Player a Way to Measure Progress and Clear Indication of How to Become Better
Incorporate Tutorial into Gameplay: Integrate instruction into the game progression instead of standalone n preparation for this presentation, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which games scaffold learning, provide assessment and encourage risk-taking. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I stumbled across
This site is attempting to provide a exhaustive list of guidelines for game developers to consider when building games.
Any astute educator will easily be able to see parallels between these ideas and conteporary approaches to education. Rather than beat you over the head with an essay on the significance of each point, I thought I’d just list the ones I see as particilarly relevant.
Enjoy!
http://www.theinspiracy.com/400_so_far.htm
Provide Clear Short-Term Goals
Emphasize Exploration and Discovery
Provide Parallel Challenges with Mutual Assistance: When presenting the player with a challenge – a monster to kill, a puzzle to solve, a city to capture – provide several such challenges and set it up so accomplishing one challenge makes it a little easier to accomplish the others (that’s the mutual assistance component).
Make the Game Fun for the Player, not the Designer or Computer
Don’t Penalize the Player: It’s often tempting to design a penalty for the player to emphasize failure at a task or to discourage the player from attempting to do something in the game you don’t like. But “failing” and “being discouraged” just aren’t fun. There’s always a way to turn it around and reward the player for success, or encourage them to do what you want.
Provide an Enticing Long Term Goal: Many (but not all) games benefit by having an ultimate goal that is made clear to the player fairly early on. Making this goal enticing is one way to pull the player into the game world and encourage passion.
Be Consistent in Feedback to the Player: One of the stronger “consistency” rules, it is best to remain consistent when giving feedback to the player because variation merely for the sake of relieving boredom is particularly likely to result in frustration when the player reads intent that is not present. For example, the old Adventure Game classic “I can’t do that” – “I can’t do that here” implies there is a place where it can be done, and “I can’t do that yet” implies there is a time where it will be possible.
Simple as Possible: “Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler” – find ways to simplify any game element or system of game elements, but only to the point where further simplification takes away more interest than it compensates for with clarity.
Make Rewards Proportional to the Difficulty of the Task Required to Earn Them
Make the Player Feel Smart: Provide avenues for the player to feel clever, and conversely avoid situations that will make the player feel stupid.
Provide Multiple Solutions to Challenges: Avoid bottlenecks and boredom by providing different ways to achieve goals, preferably using different types of skills.
Players Should See Their Goal Before They Achieve It: The satisfaction of achieving a goal is magnified when the goal has been clear (and/or literally visible) for some time. Solving a puzzle or surmounting an obstacle without even knowing you were doing it, or without knowing why, robs the player of satisfaction.
Do, Don’t Show: It is better to show action or drama being enacted than tell the player about it in exposition, but it’s even better to let the player experience that action or drama interactively instead of showing it.
Provide Outward and Visible Signs of Accomplishment: It is a powerful incentive for players to see visible signs of accomplishment, changing the appearance of their avatar/units, displaying special advantages visibly and not just in underlying statistics. In multiplayer games these signs should also be visible to other players.
Provide a Reaction to Every Player Action: Ideally, every action a player can take should have some sort of feedback, visual, audible, or both.
Leave Player Wanting More: As distinguished from many games, which, by the time they’re finished, leave player wanting less
Trim the Fat: Ruthlessly trim away any parts of the game or story that do not directly contribute to the player’s enjoyment, and omit extraneous elements.
Design Concentric Spaces: Let the player return to earlier spaces and environments as a stronger, more capable character
Give Player a Way to Measure Progress and Clear Indication of How to Become Better
Incorporate Tutorial into Gameplay: Integrate instruction into the game progression instead of standalone tutorials
In education we often talk about the internet being a place of communication and collaboration, a place where minds meet to exchange ideas, explore a multiplicity of viewpoints and to celebrate innovation in thinking, design and application. But the thing is, the internet is many things to many people, and therein lies the rub.
“The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 7
Wild Pig by Anthony Grimley 2006 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share AlikeLicence
I’d like to devote this post to a relatively new phenomenon – the Twitter backchannel. To those unfamiliar with this mechanism, it is basically when people at a conference or meeting use Twitter to comment on what is going on in front of them. On the surface, this sounds like and incredibly powerful way to explore ideas. The backchannel gives people all over the world a window on virtually any presentation and provides the presenter with the potential to engage with an incredibly diverse audience.
Or at least that’s the theory. The reality – it seems – is sometimes quite different. Sometimes the commentaries of Twitter crowds can be quite savage and cruel.
Now I may be in the minority on this, but I do not believe that disliking a presentation grants people the right to belittle the presenter in online fora. If you don’t like a presentation, you have options. You can leave. Read a book. Check your email. Believe me, I have endured a number of bad presentations in my time. I have sat for an hour as someone read to me all the tiny text on the PowerPoint equivalent of War and Peace. I once journeyed 1000 kilometres to sit through a keynote delivered by an angry, young man who had spent no more than 5 minutes preparing his presentation. I have seen some lamentable performances.
But I have also delivered my fair share of bad presentations. And every time I encounter a poor presentation, I think that there for the grace of Gates, go I. Fortunately, I am yet to “face the power of a fully armed and operational backchannel.”
The first time I witnessed the wrath of Twitter’s backchannel was during last year’s SXSW Conference. New Media commentator Sarah Lacy took to the stage to interview Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. It was a hard interview to watch. It was clear Lacy lost her audience in the room and the prevalence of Twitter certainly magnified this. Before the interview had finished, Lacy had somehow managed to draw out the ire of many people, not only in the conference hall but also all over the globe. The commentary of the backchannel picked up momentum as the interview went on and this is hardly surprising – Twitter has the ability to embolden hecklers. People are more likely to air their opinion when they know they know others with comparable views occupy the same space.
Now some will argue Lacy got what she deserved. I’ll admit, it certainly was an odd interview and Lacy’s behaviour was unlikely to endear many people to her. But does this mean she deserved such hostility? She hadn’t hurt anyone, and to be fair, Zuckerberg is known to be a difficult subject to interview.
Let’s look at a more recent case, described as the Great Keynote Meltdown by Michael Fienen of Eduguru. The keynote speaker at the HighEdWeb conference was David Galper, of Ruckus , a failed music sharing service. Now I’m the first to admit that everyone has the right to express an opinion and the sharing of disparate viewpoints online is one of the most compelling aspects of the internet. And in the interests of full disclosure, I will also state that I am guilty of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time on a daily basis. But the backchannel at HEW09 could not simply be explained away as a group of people disparate presenting points of view in a colourful way – there was something else in it. Something unpleasant. Have a read and make up your own mind. I won’t list all of it, but enough for you to get a sense of the tone of the discourse.
12:03 pm Hear hear! Someone turn up the contrast. #heweb09 #dropshadow
12:06 pm Audio Fail. #heweb09
12:09 pm am I in a presentation from 5 years ago? #heweb09 #musicdatesthings
12:17 pm Watching keynote. Clearly I’m not the only one that sucks at Powerpoint. I was smart enough to not use it though. #heweb09
12:19 pm David Galper, ur doin gr8, and ima let you finish, but @jmspool had one of the best keynotes ever! #heweb09
12:25 pm it’s awesome in the “I don’t want to turn away from the accident because I might see a severed head” way #heweb09
12:31 pm I think the monkey door prize should go to the 1st person to stand up and politely ask him to stop #heweb09
12:32 pm Would he like the immediate feedback of us all walking out? #heweb09
12:35 pm Beware the harshtag ye who do not know thy audience #heweb09
12:37 pm I am absolutely dying with laughter, BEST BACKCHANNEL EVER! #heweb09
12:43 pm And I thought the backchannel was nasty to yesterday’s guy… he may have been wrong, but at least he was entertaining. #heweb09
12:46 pm Conspiracy theory…. #justsayin This has evolved into the most compelling social experiment I’ve ever witnessed. #heweb09
12:46 pm went back to my room 30 minutes ago out of desperation, but now enjoying the explosive anti-keynoter snark from a safe distance. #heweb09
12:46 pm Too bad they took my utensils away w/ my plate. I could have jammed the butter knife into my temple. #heweb09
12:48 pm we call it like we see it… or sometimes we just get stabby. #heweb09
12:48 pm Last Slide THANK GOD #heweb09
12:49 pm I sat through the Zuckerberg/Sarah Lacey SXSW interview, glad I’m missing the current keynote trainwreck http://bit.ly/2FuA4w #heweb09
12:50 pm Can someone seriously stand up and say “Why the hell are you still on stage?” #heweb09
12:50 pm First presenter all day to list AIM info and not Twitter? #heweb09
12:52 pm I did notice. And I was at #eduweb where it was all very enthusiastic. Just can’t believe how bad this got. #heweb09
12:56 pm his phone number is still up there… should we all call him at the same time? #heweb09
12:57 pm Thank you, social media! It’s like having a live telecast of the Hindenburg go down in flames. Oh the humanity! #heweb09
12:57 pm Not there, someone please post his phone number to the tag #heweb09
12:57 pm A bit worried about giving a conference presentation next month after seeing how you savaged the wretched keynote at #heweb09 Have mercy!
1:05 pm #heweb09 has become a bloodthirsty mob. No tact, no decency, no respect. Virtual lynchings have no place here and so neither do I.
1:05 pm Note to self: Never speak in front of the #heweb09 group. Brutal.
1:15 pm After reading the backchannel, rethinking my interest in getting to know the #heweb09 crowd. Snarky is one thing, brutal another.
1:20 pm Checking out the Twitter backchannel for the keynote at #heweb09. It’s been a while since I’ve seen claws out like this…
1:22 pm Sorry, that’s tantamount to a racist saying, “But I have black friends!” This Schadenfreude-driven bandwagon is sad. #heweb09
1:26 pm Social media conferences just hype products. You gain nothing. Presenters are dimwits. Don’t waste your money on them. #heweb09
1:32 pm Death Star? Pah. I witnessed the power of a fully armed and operational back channel. #heweb09
1:33 pmWow, just read all the tweets on #heweb09 speaker. I feel sorry for this guy. Folks – he has feelings too.
1:34 pm In Galper’s defense (although I almost napped) its hard to make a presentation to 450 people. Ye without sin, cast the first stone #heweb09
1:46 pm Youch! Social media keynote speaker gets #tweckeld with #harshtags at #heweb09 just now. Beware! It’s a new age 4 conferences!
1:48 pm For the keynote speaker, the art of clapping politely is now over thanks to twitter #heweb09
The Twitter backchannel began with a few acerbic observations about the presenter’s slides. Galper apparently packed paragraphs of text onto the slides and this was accompanied by poor quality video and dated music that was too loud. Annoying, yes. A crime against humanity… not quite.
Let's Talk Business by inquirer 2009 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share AlikeLicence
One thing a look at the backchannel reveals that once the mood of the mob was established, there was little that could have been done to turn the tide. Malcontents indulged one another and found solace in the humiliation of the source of their aggravation. I was not the only one to notice this:
“A bit worried about giving a conference presentation next month after seeing how you savaged the wretched keynote at #heweb09″
I could be wrong but the free-for-all tone of the backchannel could come back to bite us on the backside. It may well limit our options as repeated incidents such as HEW09 could possibly lead to a situation whereby some extremely engaging presenters do not submit abstracts for fear of being subjected to the vented spleens of the Bitterati (my term for an angry mob of Twitterers).
Of course, there are some lessons to be taken from this, the most obvious of which is for presenters to know their audience. Conferences can be extremely expensive and presenters should do what they can to meet the expectations of their audience. But sometimes anticipating an audience’s expectations is difficult; and sometimes those expectations have nothing to do with the backchannel anyway. A number of nasty comments made about HEW09 were penned by people who weren’t even at the conference.
The truth is everyone has at least one bad presentation in them and I wonder whether it is fair or reasonable to be judged so comprehensively for public speaking – something that is often claimed to be feared more than death.
In a few places in the transcript voices of reason can be heard:
“I feel sorry for this guy. Folks – he has feelings too”
and
“#heweb09 has become a bloodthirsty mob. No tact, no decency, no respect. Virtual lynchings have no place here and so neither do I.“
Unfortunately these comments were ultimately drowned out by the noise of vitriol finding a voice. Now I know some of the comments were merely hasty attempts to add to the perceived humour of the occasion, but here and there the cadence of the backchannel were measured by the demonstrative sounds of a schoolyard bully beating his chest.
The internet can be a harsh place, a place where anonymity and distance can incite passionate discourse. There’s a duality to the web we cannot ignore – it is a place where multiple viewpoints can be represented brilliantly, but it can also be a place where the lowest common denominator is occasionally characterised by virtual thuggery and pettiness.
At times, I have to question the so-called wisdom of the crowds.
On his blog Web Strategy, Jeremiah Owyang Silicon Valley offers numerous suggestions as to how speakers should integrate social mechanisms into their presentations. Similar advice can be found at Pistachio Consulting.
One of the most proffered pieces of advice regarding this matter is that speakers should monitor the backchannel. I can see the strengths of this. However, I must say that personally I would find it counter-intuitive to carry out this activity. Perhaps this is a failing, but I find that presenting in a formal context takes all my concentration and I would find it difficult to multitask like this. I think my corpus callosum is too thin to (1) follow Twitter whilst presenting, and (2) respond to the views expressed in the backchannel whilst addressing the original intent of the presentation (not to mention taming the nerves which accompany speaking to large groups of strangers).
I have seen the suggestion that the speakers could have someone else monitor the backchannel – or to take Twitter breaks – and this is something I’ll take under advisement. Now I enjoy Twitter as much as the next tweep, but I sometimes question whether it deserves the revered status some people grant it. We must remember that not everyone tweets during presentations – is it rude to let the backchannel steer the conversation or should a presenter be more focussed upon the pursuing his or her original intention in their delivery? Perhaps too much attention paid to the backchannel may actually alienate those people who are not a part of it. Also, should all presentations be a dialogue? Should every speech be reactive? I wonder how some of the great orations of our time would have sounded with the Twitter backchannel co-authoring the content.
Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have A Dream Speech by estrategyblog.com 2007 Creative Commons Licence
Owyang suggests speakers should ‘practice two-fisted speaking‘ i.e. presenters have two devices in hand: the PowerPoint clicker in one hand and a mobile device in the other, monitoring the backchannel. I’m not sure I feel about this. It almost suggests an adversarial arrangement i.e. monitoring audience sentiment seems predicated on fear of what the other is saying.
This latest Twitter incident introduced a new word into my lexicon – the harshtag, a pun or sorts on the ubiquitous hashtag. For those who don’t know, the hashtag is often used by Twitterers to group tweets around an event or topic. I find myself increasingly torn in my feelings about the hashtag. Whilst it is an extremely powerful way to tie together related tweets together via Twitter Search, lately I have seen more and more Twitterers game the system by associating their tweets with popular hashtags such as those orbiting around a conference. But I digress…
Of course, there are many positives to be gained from Twittering at conferences including meeting up with others, exchanging ideas as they are being presented and the sharing of supplemental resources. Terese Bird noted in her blog post ‘Is it Polite to Tweet During Lectures?’:
“I found that tweeting during keynote and other presentations helped me to digest what was being said. Perhaps the practice of distilling what I heard into 140-character tweets was forcing me to boil down the presentations into a series of take-home messages which I could retain more easily. Moreover, while I am excellent at losing pens and little notebooks, I can’t lose Twitter, so I can go back onto Twitter and re-read the notes I took at ALT-C.”
This is one of those topics where there are so many sides, it is difficult to take a firm position without opposing reasonable viewpoints. However, I think we can take it as read that if we are expecting students to operate in online spaces in a collaborative way, we must set the tone and conduct ourselves with the sensitivity and thoughtfulness that we would hope to see in them.
Face in a Crowd by vividbreeze 2007 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’d know that one of the themes I find myself constantly returning to is the idea of engaging with the wider world. Perhaps this is because I believe one of the greatest benefits technology can bring to education is the opportunity to interact with the world outside the school fence. It gives students the opportunity to authentically engage with multiple perspectives – to see things from a different point of view.
Questioned Proposal by eleaf 2008 Creative Commons Licence
For a little while now, I have been dabbling in Ask500 as a mechanism for polling (e.g. my question exploring the Monty Hall problem) but I have some qualms about the service in an educational context. Unfortunately, Ask 500 seems to have attracted its fair share of trolls; whilst some comments left on polls are extremely erudite and intellectually engaging, there are just as many characterised by belligerence and hostility. Ask500 does give users the opportunity to embed the polls which is a good way of avoiding the nastiness. It also means teachers can scaffold the learning around the poll question in a way not possible on the Ask500 site. However, I have been on the hunt for an alternative with the same reach.
On Twitter@BarbInNebraska mentioned GoPollGo. I took a look and fell in love with the interface – simple, clean and deceptively powerful. The ability to dig deep into the data (location is set by IP) is really appealing, as is the ability to tweak the interface – I set my graphs colours according to de Bono’s hats which was the subject of my question.
The site allows users to place their questions in categories – I tucked mine under Education naturally – and it also allows users to flag inappropriate content. Whilst Ask500 is certainly not lacking in features, it is wearisome to read some of the inflammatory questions put up by users just to get a reaction.
I need to investigate this service further before I formally recommend it to schools, but at this early stage I can see a lot of potential. It’s a promising sign when within minutes of mentioning it on Twitter, you get this sort of response:
Have a look at the Poll below and feel free to contribute to it.
‘I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now – entertain us.’
Cobain wasn’t talking about schools when he wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit but these lyrics could be used to describe classrooms where the teacher remains the focal point of every lesson. It’s not about the teacher. It’s about the learner. Fortunately most teachers realise this and in my position, I have been fortunate to be privy to the wonderful things that can happen when good teachers scaffold the learning so students may access opportunities for positive development (personal and academic).
Kurt Cobain References by Ronayne 2008 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence
Last week I attended an exhibition called ‘Indoor Laneways’ – you can find more about it at Marie Salinger’s blog and at the Indoor Laneways site – and was enthralled with the incredible diversity of expression evident in the works on show. The exhibition celebrated something that has always been an important part of education but now, thanks to technology, is being redefined – the art of collaboration. I was reminded of the Creative Commons ideology – to share is good. The theme of the exhibition harkens back to a time when literary, visual and musical works were constantly reiterated, placing the creative process front and centre, leaving behind the constraints that exist when people become inappropriately zealous about intellectual property.
Over the past ten years were have seen the concept of a ‘learning environment’ challenged and rightly so. Technology has given educators the chance to expand the classroom. Learning can take place in galleries, in museums, in city squares and on top of mountains. Technology gives us the opportunity to capture the learning where it actually occurs. Cameras, mp3 recorders, data loggers, phones and netbooks can all be used to document the learning process. And not just document. These devices can stimulate. Inspire. Connect. In many ways these are transformative tools as they are the means by which potent change can be effected. Technology has given students the means to access the endeavours of others and – in perfect situations – contribute. As was evidenced by the Indoor Laneways project, students can enter into a relationship with others that enhances their learning. Sometimes it is the connection and not the content that is important.
Sets Arrive at the Black Box by Marie Salinger 2009 Creative Commons Non-Commercial Licence
This innovative undertaking gave these teens the chance to remix. To share. To iterate. Isn’t this what we want kids to do? Learning doesn’t take place in a vacuum. There are few things as contextualised as learning. Acts of investigation and exploration often lead to discovery, followed by synthesis and analysis, often culminating in a creative response to what was discovered (such as an essay, idea, movie, comment, picture etc.). It is too easy to dismiss remixing as copying or borrowing ideas (or even stealing); this sort of appraisal is not only simplistic – it ignore the fact that history is replete with myriad examples – great art, literature and thinking – that has taken that which has preceded it and reinterpreted it. Sometimes such interpretations are overt homages and other times they are ironic, placing new meaning upon age-old tropes.
We place the Bard upon a pedestal, and rightly so, but he often repurposed history, and the literary works of others, to create something new and compelling.
And even Cobain covered songs. And made them something extraordinary.
One issue I have been watching with interest this year has been the inevitable tension between educators who believe most passionately in the potential of social networks/Web 2.0 services and those who believe that such mechanisms should be regulated, if not avoided.
Rather than declare my position on the matter (which would inevitably turn this into an argumentative essay) I thought I would raise some points to ponder.
At the bottom of the post you will find a presentation I put together which touches upon some of the issues. The presentation starts with a simple division of relevant digital environments: the LAN (Local Area Network), the WAN (Wide Area Network) and the Web. It seems that the further out one goes, the greater the risks – and arguably, the richer the experience.
If there are risks, why go to the Web at all? Perhaps because…
It allows for collaboration on a global scale
It’s an environment students know
Content is dynamic and contemporary
Many services are free
Access is ubiquitous
Many services and applications cater for a range of learning modalities
Connects people (many of whom would not be connected otherwise)
Access to disparate viewpoints
Non-hierachial environment – many voices
A place where knowledge can be found, co-created, synthesised and questioned
Of course there are many more reasons but these were the first ten to pop into my head and I like my lists to end at ten. Fairly powerful reasons to use the Web covering a range of foci: democratic, economic, pedagogical…
Does this mean we should involve our students with every shiny new thing that appears on the internet?
As with most things, it’s not that simple. Schools, whether we like it or not, are made up of kids. Other people’s children. Impressionable young beings with the capacity for greatness and a penchant for mischief. Whilst most teachers have a wealth of experiences to fall back on (and by experiences I mean everything including dumb mistakes) students are different – they are limited by the fact they have spent fewer years on the planet and this is a consideration – they will make mistakes. Occasionally they will choose poorly. They will not always think something through and this is the crux of it – we need to ensure they do not pay for these mistakes longer than is necessary.
Unfortunately, the internet is a place where many of our mistakes do not simply go away. In fact, it is a place where things have a habit of multiplying like Tribbles. Our digital footprint builds over time – it does not fade.
Tribbles by AJC1 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence
Before school policy regarding use of online services is developed, schools need to be informed and there are at least two ways of doing that. The first way is to actually use the online services before making decisions about them. This doesn’t necessarily mean that students should be thrust into using them too for the purposes of a trial, but schools do need some maverick teachers who are willing to get their hands dirty by playing in such spaces, testing them out, committing to their use. This is the only way for the potential – and pitfalls – of such places to be properly understood.
This sort of investigation needs to be balanced/complemented by thorough research. Fortunately in Australia we have a fair amount of sources we can draw upon to get a sense of trends, patterns and issues. Recently ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) put out two reports under the name Click and Connect. I would regard the reports as essential reading for any school staff who influence policy. One of the salient points raised in ACMA’s report is that parents (stakeholders) need to be brought into the discussion concerning use of online spaces. Schools must engage with the parents and listen to them, guide them, inform them – and yes, even plan policy with them. A large number of parents are unaware of how their kids operate in social networking environments. If schools are going to adopt online services as part of their educational offerings, parents need to be brought into the conversation.
I do not believe the internet should be feared, and it is true that many people tend to fear what they don’t know. It is a school’s responsibility to survey the digital landscape. How this is done is a matter for each school to nut out, but let me indulge in a metaphor for a moment to highlight a point. I go hiking with some friends a number of times a year. When we head out into unknown territories, we tend to bring along things to minimise risk – maps, compasses, matches, first aid, emergency supplies etc. We also contact park rangers, check out weather reports, as well as informing people at home about where we are going.
If teachers are truly guides they need to take on the responsibilities of guides by understanding the route and landscape before them and this should be done before taking students into new places.
The two greatest problems involving adolescent use of the internet centre upon cyber-bullying and invasions of privacy. These are entwined. Whilst some savvy kids know how to protect themselves i.e. avoid situations whereby their personal data can be used against them, quite a few kids are oblivious to the ways in which they can be compromised online. These are matters that should be comprehensively explored with classes before throwing the Web 2.0 doors wide open.
There is no doubt that Terms of Service (TOS) aren’t always considered by some teachers. Many Web 2.0 services originating out of the US are restricted by COPPA which prohibits users being under the age of 13. A number of online networks have TOS that should give us pause: e.g. “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”
Facebook, as an example, does not have a good track record for privacy – take the Beacon fiasco whereby many users were unaware of how their data was being shared.
I do not raise this example as a reason not to use such services, but I believe that schools must open a dialogue with stakeholders before they go gangbusters in online environments. Because if that doesn’t happen and things go awry, the first reaction of governing institutions is to turn off access to the facility (ala YouTube) and that is a dreadful shame.
The presentation above includes a few scenarios I have used to illustrate some of the considerations schools must wrestle with. (Credit to Susie Vesper for the ideas).
I work in elearning because I’m into technology; I’m not into technology because I work in elearning. It’s an important distinction. In the hours of my life when I’m not being paid, I’m still looking at the ways technology can complement or augment what I do. The other day I completed a rather large personal project – the second (and final) novel of the dark fantasy saga of Caliban’s End. (For more details, head over to my other blog).
Now writing the books has been fun (you heard me – fun) but what has been brilliant from a geek perspective is the way in which technology has helped me (1) get over the line, and (2) approach the age-old pursuit of writing (and publishing) from a different angle. I thought I’d list some of the bits of tech I used in the Caliban’s End project. Some of these have been crucial to my work.
The Humble Wiki
About five years ago, I stumbled across pbwiki.com. Back then (2005) most people knew of wikipedia but that was about it. Wikis were yet to gain a foothold in education. With uncanny and totally uncharacteristic prescience, I saw the potential of the wiki to add depth to what I was doing. Rather than thicken an already dense novel with back-story, I thought I could use the wiki as a way to add another dimension to my story.
I loved the early days of pbwiki. Back then you could send an email asking for help and get a reply an hour or so later from one of the company’s founders. I even got CEO David Weekly to record an intro for a podcast I made!
Since then pbwiki has become pbworks and they have had extraordinary success (over 1,000,000 wikis) . There have been some issues along the way, especially when they migrated to a new interface (oh the pain of manually having to strip out javascript from hundreds of pages) but all-in-all it’s been a good relationship.
I must admit, I’m a wee bit proud of my wiki over at http://calibansend.pbworks.com/. Forgive my hubris, but I think my little wiki is unique. I certainly haven’t seen a brace of novels presented in a comparable way.
Wordweb
I am still astounded when I find this missing from computers in the schools I visit. When you consider the price of printed dictionaries (and their terrible limitations) Wordweb is a given. And it’s free: http://wordweb.info/
I couldn’t count the number of times I clicked on the little W in the system tray when stumped for a word or definition. Wordweb is – quite simply – a must-have application.
GIMP
If you head over to the blog or the wiki, you’ll see that there are literally hundreds of images accompanying the text. I’m a visual person. I grew up on a healthy diet of video games and comics, so my sensibilities have been shaped with an appreciation for the power of visuals. Most of these images have been manipulated, some dramatically so. Originally I was using Corel PhotoPaint (which has been magnificent) but over recent years, I felt drawn to open source; if there is an open source alternative for a piece of software (and there usually is – see osalt.com for proof), I tend to go with the open source. GIMP has been so handy in creating the images that have become such a large part of this project.
After a slightly steep but brief learning curve, I soon found I was able to achieve really pleasing effects in very little time. I know Photoshop is the standard, but it costs a mint and to be honest, my guess is the 95% of its power isn’t used by the basic user (a category in which I would place myself).
For some time now, I’ve been an advocate of using Creative Commons as a place to source images. I love the underlying premise – that to share is good – and in a time where it is incredibly easy to steal, it seems important to make some effort to acknowledge (attribute) where things come from. That said, I thought the presence of attribution in this project would be a little bit distracting – the suspension of disbelief necessary to fully appreciate each image would be slightly undermined by the presence of a photographer’s name and a CC licence.
Fortunately, there are places you can go to get images that do not require attribution and I have found the best of these to be Morguefile. The quality of the images in Morguefile is extremely high. Most pictures weigh in at about 5 MB in size which usually equates to a good resolution. The range of subject matter is extraordinary and the categorisation and interface make for a pleasant experience. Just about every image in this project (including the book covers) was sourced from Morguefile.
Blog
Yes, I know it’s a bit obvious to put a blog in the list, but it deserves a mention, especially now I have finished the books. Very early on in the adventure, I decided to use a blog to chronicle my movement through it. It’s wonderful now to look back on the path I’ve walked, reading about the highlights and challenges. As a male, I tend to forget things pretty quickly, especially things of emotional significance, so the blog is a lovely way of remembering it all.
The blog was also an effective way of keeping other people informed about my progress and this shouldn’t be glossed over. In some ways, the fact that friends, family and other interested parties were keeping tabs on my work via the blog became a motivating force. The blog was the public face of the book and I think it has (and will continue) to perform the PR role nicely.
Self-Publishing
I must admit, I have had a love-hate relationship with Lulu.com from the get go. This is all chronicled in the aforementioned blog, so I won’t dwell upon it here, but I must mention the positives of self-publishing. The simple fact is I don’t have a lot of book publishers knocking on my door saying they want to publish my book and I don’t have the time or inclination to jump through the hoops of an old school publishing model. In light of this, self-publishing can be viewed as a tool for empowerment. As unwieldy as it can be, it is still the best and fastest way for an unpublished author to set their work in print. And for all the pain, there is nothing like the feeling you get when you first flick through the pages of your own book.
Google Docs
The two novels add up to over 1,000 pages. Now that’s a lot of writing to lose should my home computer die. Fortunately, this was never a concern as I backed up my work to Google Docs every day. Of course, this was not my only backup procedure, but it was the most efficient. Like everyone else who has every put fingers to keyboard, I have experienced the pain of losing work to computer failure. In fact, I believe there is some law – let’s call it Stewart’s Law – that states that the second attempt at writing something that was lost due to computer failure will never be as good as the first. Anyway, I can proudly say that I didn’t lose a syllable whilst on this project thanks to simple backup mechanisms such as Google Docs.
I could also list a bunch of sites that were crucial to my research and my education, but this post is quickly becoming a novel of its own, so I’ll leave that discussion for another time.
This morning I submitted my second abstract for acec2010, the big ICT in education conference coming up next year.
I have two presentations submitted for acec2010 (and VITTA09) and both of these revolve around my favourite topic – games in education. I want to dedicate this post to a game called Scribblenauts which will be the focus of one of my presentations. I’ve been a wee bit pre-emptive on this – the game’s not out yet; in fact it doesn’t come out until September but already it’s captured the attention of the gaming media. Many game sites awarded Scribblenauts with the honour of Game of Show and from what I’ve seen it deserves it.
Scribblenauts is a puzzle action video game for the Nintendo DS. The objective of the game is to complete puzzles by conjuring up objects (which are created by writing the object’s name on the touchscreen). These objects can range from animals and household objects through to vehicles, forces of nature and famous people (both fictional and real). A pool of well over 10,000 objects exists. Basically, if you can think of it, it’s probably in the game. Faced with an army of robot zombies that can not be defeated with regular weapons? Create a time machine to collect a dinosaur to that could defeat the zombies. Or do something else. It’s up to you. Take a look below.
As an educator (roughly speaking) I am enthralled by the possibilities of Scribblenauts. The beauty of the concept is there are no answers – only solutions. Players are encouraged to experiment. Lateral thinking is rewarded. Mistakes are not punished but they do have consequences. In some ways, the experience epitomises the sort of learning I value – rich, personalised and engaging.
Why does this work?
Lets look at the environment. It is what a good classroom should be – a place of discovery, of creativity and adventure. The depth lies in the problems and puzzles, not in the interface. Occasionally our classrooms have complex or rigid interfaces (language, regulations, seating arrangements) which inhibit a student’s ability to access the real stuff – the deep thinking that leads to learning. Outside of the fact that you could be attacked by anything from a vampire to a tank, the environment it is non-threatening. Humour plays an important part as does the use of sound and visuals.
It was interesting to see that the importance of spelling is reinforced – the game can’t create things it doesn’t understand. However, the student isn’t punished when the spelling is close enough – a list of words appears to support the player in their attempt to find a solution to the larger problem. The need to provide a solution to a problem is front and centre, but a subtle recognition of the mechanics of language (specifically spelling) is prevalent.
Players are rewarded in the game for coming up with unique approaches. The game engaging because of its essential premise: what if? I think what if are the best two words to use at the start of any question. The game seems to demand inquiry. It relies upon our innate curiousity and encourages the user to hypothesise.
Without having spent any time on Scribblenauts, I’m already impressed with the way there are consequences for decisions made. Consider the video: introduce a vampire to kill the monster you used to kill the lion, and you now have a new problem. Throwing garlic at the vampire only makes it run to/at you. Solution – create a vampire hunter to kill the vampire. (I love the little touches – the vampire hunter was clearly modelled on Hugh Jackman’s Van Helsing).
The breadth of it seems incredibly deep. In the video, the game journalist (Ryan O’Donnell) suggests using Cthulu. Cthulu is a creation of American horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Although aficionados of sci fi/horror would be familiar with this monstrous creature, it is fairly obscure but that did not the game producing it, complete with Cthulu-like behaviour. Its inclusion in the game only heightens my sense of anticipation for Scribblenauts. I wonder what else is in there? The mind boggles, and you know what they say – happiness is a boggling mind.
This week, I managed to squeeze in some time with Wolfram Alpha (hence the obscure blog title). Wolfram Alpha is described as an ‘answer engine’. Unlike search engines (Google, Yahoo, the overhyped Cuil and the surprisingly good Bing from Microsoft) which return a list of web pages that contain the search term, Wolfram Alpha actually computes an answer from structured data.
Now this sounds a little dry and boring piece of tech, but after a few minutes of using Wolfram Alpha, I began to think of it as a person (i.e. a highly intelligent person). Occasionally, a wry sense of humour could be stumbled upon when the right question was asked, and although such answers are all smoke and mirrors, it made me wonder about Ray Kurzweil’s ideas about how machines learn. Following Moore’s Law to an arguable conclusion, technology’s exponential rate of improvement may ultimately lead to what has been dubbed atechnological singularity: a period where progress in technology occurs almost instantly. Does this equate with intelligence? The concept of intelligence covers numerous abilities (to reason, to plan, to problems-solve, to use language, and to learn). Advances in technology have already allowed computers to achieve many of these abilities. I wonder what is possible when the singularity manifests…
Android, Miraikan Museum by jpmath 2006 Creative Commons Attrib., Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence
Some may scoff at the idea of machine intelligence but an individual’s point-of-view on the subject is predicated upon their definition of intelligence. In 1997 Deep Blue computer defeated World Champion chess player Garry Kasparov. Machines are capable of strategy, of incredibly complex calculations that a human could not perform and they can multi-task millions of things at once – I can’t do more than two things at once without ruining at least one of them. Whilst machines are not (yet) capable of sentience, they are able to convey the appearance of sentience (which is more than some of my students were able to do).
Have a play with Wolfram Alpha. Ask it questions. Here are a few starters:
What’s your name?
Where are you?
What are your hobbies?
How can you help me?
Who’s your daddy?
Then move on to a few tough ones:
y/x+y”/x^1/2=sin(x)*cos(x)
Calculate pi to the 10000th digit
What is the forty-second smallest country by GDP per capita?
Am I too drunk to drive?
How long is a piece of string?
(Below you will find a little presentation I created collecting 50 of my favourite questions to ask Wolfram Alpha).
.
It is only a matter of years until machine intelligence is so sophisticated, that the appearance of sentience will be so sophisticated and comprehensive, the differences will seem indistinguishable. So what do we do? Fear such changes? See technology as the wolf?
Perhaps not.
When we look far into the future (that is, if we find a way to preserve the planet long enough to maintain human existence) then the merging of intelligences in some form is inevitable. There will come a time when cybernetics, computerisation and organic life will be so intrinsically linked, that the concept of individual intelligences will be an anachronism. This is hardly an idea of my creation. The merging of intelligences has long been explored in literature (Neuromancer and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), film (The Matrix) and even anime and manga (the wonderful Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell to name but one example). I wonder what it means for education. For centuries we have more or less retained the same model for education, but I really can’t see that continuing.
Hmmm… I even wonder whether we will have schools in a hundred years.
A Ghost in the Shell? by james|studiosushi 2007 Creative Commons Attrib., Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.
- Ken Robinson
In my last post, I focussed upon those people in education who need a bit of a hand with technology i.e. do not take readily to change. Today, I’d like to tackle the other end of the spectrum – the importance of addressing the needs of the ones who embrace change like a lover: the innovators, dreamers and rebels.
Last night on the ABC, Sir Ken Robinson spoke of the need for schools to radically re-think the ways in which they foster creativity – and/or stifle it. But (as Robinson would agree) it’s not just schools. It’s educational institutions, it’s employers, businesses, governments…
Consistent with my Virgoan penchant for lists, I thought I’d put together my Top 10 Ways to Kill Creativity. Perhaps there are one or two points here you see in your workplace. I hope you don’t see them all.
Run everything through a committee. The first way to kill creative impulses is to shackle every action to the agenda of a meeting.
Cater for lowest common denominator. Avoid indulging the needs of those whose passions, interests or intellectual appetites lead them to unfamilar places.
Give limited time to investigate new things. Discourage exploration, investigation and inquiry.
Bind everything to a hierachy. Ensure permission is sought for all actions. Wrap everything in bureacracy and policy.
Discourage specialists. Expect everyone to be able to do the same things.
Worry about the public perception of every action. Anything that may upset or unsettle others is to be stopped at all costs.
Block access to the tools and environments that engender creativity.
Mistakes are unacceptable – they are not to be tolerated.
Maintain order at all times. Deviation from set practices should not be permitted.
Dismiss alternative viewpoints as either character flaws, naivete or insubordination.
Although much is made these days of the wisdom of the crowds (a phenenomeon that goes some way to explain the success of Wikipedia), I do not believe we can always assume that people thinking the same = intelligence, because progress – which could be considered an identifier of intelligence – is only made possible when something new or different is introduced. I agree with George Siemens who asserted in a recent post that a homogeneous group is often “not very effective at creativity”.
I understand why institutions, businesses, schools et al. sometimes struggle with creativity. By its very nature creativity is inconvenient and problematic. One of the oldest creative processes – birth – is often characterised by tremendous physical and emotional upheaval, anxiousness and risk, but it is also one of the most astounding events a person can witness. Of course I would not be so bold to suggest that activities around the office or in the classroom come close to achieving the significance of parturition, but I do believe that creative impulses take many forms and in a time where many of the world’s most successive individuals are the ones who did not follow the crowd, we would do well to consider the ways in which we deal with deviation from conventional behaviour and thinking.
The Creation of Photographer by MarkyBon. Creative Commons Attrib., Copyleft, Non-Commercial Licence, 2006
